Not Very Stable
by kurt couper
Summary: It's been years since Dawn and Spike have spoken a word to each other, but it all changes one night when he follows her out into the night. SpikeDawn friendship. Oneshot.


Title: Not Very Stable  
Author: KurtCouper  
Rating: R  
Pairing(s): Spike/Dawn Friendship  
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.  
Summary: It's been years since Dawn and Spike have spoken a word to each other, but it all changes one night. But still no resolutions are solved. 

A/N: This is revised and formally called Can't Killed Heroes. Hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 1**  
I_'m trying to grasp concepts of your dimensions  
While my universe is laced around your wrist  
I am the bracelet you sport  
I am everything that you have ever missed, and more_

_Bracelets-_The Spill Canvas

It seemed to be another one of those days, Spike thought as he watched Dawn phlegmatically walk through the door of the store. The bell chimed viciously in her ear and he saw her eyes close in surrender to the waves of pain that were echoing from her brain. The stale stench of booze trailed behind her, reeking from her opened pores. By the looks about her, it seemed as if she went to another "sleepover" with Janice. Her face was covered in pallid, cakey concealer that hid her dull complexion and dark circles. Eyes, which were normally so bright and vivacious, were lined with kohl and made up so they appeared more rested than what they truly were. He couldn't believe how no one else saw it. He knew for a fact that she had been to the hospital from her ways over a handful of times: overdoses, reactions,blood loss, coma. Maybe they just accepted it as teenage rebellion or maybe they didn't know about the acid tablets in her desk drawer, the prescription bottle filled with oxycottons, or the empty vodka bottles that littered her closet. It seemed surprising that the gang could be so oblivious, but the brunette did know how to lie well.

It's amazing how time goes by. He remembers the days, long ago, when he was all she thought about. Best friends, she once naively said to Buffy, describing why she always was with him. But time has past, wrongs have been done, and it had been at least three years since she had walked into his crypt, smiling and exuberant. Now her days were filled with melted brain cells, wasted smiles, and the way a stranger's body feels next to you at three in the morning.

Her fingers languidly and delicately trace a book that is set in front of her; homework no doubt that was probably due two weeks ago. Eyes skimming the words, Spike knows she's not comprehending. They cloud over and settle into a world he couldn't even imagine. He's watched her sometimes at night, dolled up with lipstick smeared around the liquor of choice when he's drunk too. And he pretends that he's right there with her, drowning their blues and stumbling over the same cracks in the sidewalk. But they aren't crashing their bottles of Jack in surrender just yet, their throats raw from cursing at God. No, instead he's still just a stranger to her, dead to her as he truly is once she found out the truth about everything those years ago. It wasn't so much the fucking of her sister, but the abandonment he caused. She wouldn't say it to his face though, the reason of the built hatred in her heart that sunk into her cold bones. But she had lost her hatred for him just as soon as she lost herself in the taste of alcohol. Yet nonetheless, she had let even their acquaintance slide, now there was no recognition when her eyes passed his blankly.

Her attention must have picked up because she blinked forcefully and forced her gaze towards the novel. But too soon they're traveling again and ever so slightly slip up to meet his matching sight. She's not shocked or startled, but just a little bit sad. They held emotions that he wasn't expecting her to show, nor he thinks that she wanted to. But it's just enough to know that not all is lost. That she realizes that some nights when she passes out near the Bronze or the tree by her house that it is him that places her in bed and takes care of her. And that maybe she feels a little safer knowing that he's always right behind her, lurking in the shadows, waiting to come to the rescue when he never did before. She once told him in the early dawn of the morning of that Summer so many moons ago, all cried up and spent, that she feared no one would ever come after her. He was drunk then, catching her tears with liquor stained hands, and promised that she'd never have to worry.

"How was Janice's?" Buffy asks, finally, putting away the sword she was polishing and grabbing a knife to sharpen.

Dawn dog-eared the page that she hadn't been paying attention to and set the book down. Her palm rubbed the cover of the novel, letting her fingers follow in the motion. "It was fun," she said because she knew that's what Buffy wanted to hear. Spike knew it was what Buffy wanted to hear too. Not that they broke into a house and stole three bottles of vodka or that they snorted some crushed up pills that were lying around. But that it was fun, safe-filled with movies and popcorn and talking about boys, giggling. Things that hadn't happened for three years.

"That's good," was all the Buffy said, the knife stroking the sharpener like it's lover. Spike could see the lonely way Dawn stared at the edge, her eyes transfixed as she remembered how easy it is to tear through the layers of skin. Her hand left the book and unconsciously caressed the whitened skin on her left arm. The faded scar was slick to the touch. Her eyes teared up and he wondered why she seemed so emotional or that she was. It had been years since he had seen her bright blue, almond eyes drown in tears.

"Is there any soda in the back room?" Dawn asked, her voice clear and sound, surprisingly. Spike expected it to be laced deep.

Giles took off his glasses and cleared the lens with a hankie from his pocket. "I think so," he replied after the glasses were set back on the bridge of his nose and returned to discuss the finances with Anya.

"Good," she whispered as the brunette rose from her seat and excited to the back.

Spike tried not to take notice and propped his legs on the table, his chair tilting back. He really needed a cigarette, he thought, as he wondered why he was here. No one really cared for him anymore, not that many people did in the first place. His tryst with the Slayer had ended a couple years ago when she told him that it wasn't fair for either of them. An absent smile appeared on his face as he remembered the hell that broke lose after that discussion. But it turned out so much better than he would have thought and if he didn't have dignity, he'd kiss the Slayer's scuffed boots for what she did to him-made him free. But he wasn't nothing more than the final help, the one they called when no one wanted to slay or the Big Bad was just too bad. He wasn't even the babysitter anymore. So again, why was he here? As far as Angel concerned, he wasn't welcome in a five hundred mile radius since the last time he visited and Angelus would never make appearance again. Spike really didn't have anywhere to go, anywhere that he belonged.

Sighing, he snatched his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and quickly lit one. As soon as the smoke reached his dead lungs, he saw that everyone's eyes turned to him.

Buffy gave him a disgusted eye roll. "Jerk much?" she huffed. "I like my air smoke-free."

"There's a sign too!" Anya blurted from behind the cash register, pointing to the no smoking sign in the window. "Go outside."

Spike growled, but complied. He needed fresh air anyway. He needed a fresh set of scenery, he decided while he was at it. There really wasn't any point to why he was still here, Spike reasoned as he kicked open the door from the training room to the ally. As the door slammed shut he turned around and saw the reason why he couldn't leave Sunnydale.

Dawn.

She was sitting in the corner against the brick walls, smoke floating above her head. Her face looked surprised, a hint of confusion, but nothing more than that. Her right hand held a lit cigarette and her other hand held a couple white pills in her pale palm. A bottle of what looked like bourbon was situated between her legs. As soon as his eyes reached her palms, she quickly closed her hand and slid it to her pocket. Then she grabbed the bottle and leaped to her feet, walking away.

"Bit," he called. The first words he had spoken to her in a long time. "Wait."

The sun had nearly melted into the horizon, but the last rays pricked Spike's skin as he walked out from the shade of the alley. She was walking quickly, almost to a near jog. He didn't want to cause a scene with the people walking around, so he kept his pace slow, not wanting them to think he was after her.

It hadn't been more than thirty minutes until he stopped, losing her sent trail in the middle of downtown. The sky clouded over with heavy clouds and the smell of moisture was thick. Morphing into his true form, the blonde scanned the area around him for any sight of the girl. Nothing caught his attention. As soon as his eyes melted back into clear blue, a sound of a bottle shattering on the asphalt peeked his interest.

At a quick pace, he brought himself to the sound in question. It took him several seconds to re-adjust himself to the scene. Dawn was curled up in a bus stop cover, her back against the wall and her legs dangled out in front of her on the bench. Her arm was hanging from her side, palms still moist from where the bottle's liquid splashed.

"Bit," he whispered, shaking her shoulders gently. They were clammy to his hands.

She gargled softly, her head bouncing to his movements. "Leave me alone," she bit out, her mouth cracked a bit.  
The brunette opened her eyes, her pupils swallowing the irises. With a glossy sheen, she let out a liquid smile and a dull laughter bubbled in her chest. "Just go," she slurred.

With fast action, his hand clasped her jaw, fingers bruising into her skin. When she cried out, he just grasped harder. Her head kept sinking and her dark eyes kept rolling back into her skull. A slight tremor went through the brunette's body, quaking her bones. As her eyes slowly came to focus, her mouth parted as if she wanted to say something. He gripped her jaw harder as if he was trying to keep her up and she bared her teeth at him, her cheeks burning.

"What else did you take tonight?"

A bolt of lightning cracked in the sky as the rain poured harder on the roof of the bus stop. She jumped against the bench and tore her face away from his grasp in one swift moment. He caught a strong stench of bourbon seeping from her pores.

"Spike," she whispered, her fingers rubbing against the metal wall beside her. It was damp, cold. She could basically feel every rain drop that rolled down the other side. "Just leave me alone."

He couldn't help but denote the sadness, the raw ache that seemed hallow in her throat. It was heartbreaking. Humiliation was thick in her face, along with anger. Pushing herself further away from him, she shakily grabbed a pack of beaten up Newport cigarettes from her coat pocket and held them between trembling fingers. As she pulled her lighter from the pack, she lit a cigarette slowly, her lips and hands not keeping still. The flame was blown out from a sudden gust of wind, but she deeply inhaled, letting the menthol calm her body and set her nerves to peace.

"Give me a hit," he said, awaking her from the world that she had settled herself into. With not so much as an answer, he stole the cigarette from her slender fingers and took the smoke deep into his dead lungs. Her heavy head rolled to look at him, her eyes squinting to make out his figure in the growing darkness. As he exhaled, he flicked it into a puddle. He watched her stare at the embers sizzling and hissing.

"Fuck you," she whispered, her voice straining to keep alive. Out of spite she took her pack of Newports and threw them at his face, sneering when it did nothing more than surprise him. She laughed, slow and deadly. The sound was sickening to his ears.

"C'mon bit," he said, unaffected by her, and watched her noticeably tense at the nickname. He outstretched an arm and "I'm going to take you home."

"You're not taking me anywhere," she spoke as her chin quivered, from what he did not know.

A thick crack of lightening lit up the sky like morning and her glazed dilated eyes shone brightly. Her body began to shake again. Her breathing shallow, he could tell her heartbeat was slower than normal. She didn't look too good. Against her protests which were drowned out by a rippling echo of thunder, Spike scooped Dawn's thin body into his arms. She passed out as soon as her drunken head thrashed once on his shoulder. Raindrops were seeping through her clothes and onto his skin. As eyeliner ran down her pale face, staining the pads of his fingers as he tried to wipe it away, he quickly found himself walking to his crypt.

He didn't realize it before, but they had ended up in the same position that he had been in so many summers ago, he mused as he woke up to the sound of her body harshly vomiting the contents of her stomach. She had somehow managed to make the wastebasket that was always present on nights when he carried the 'bit home. He was talking about the nights after the Slayer died when she neglected to remind him about the growingly infected injuries on her body. She would silently thrash on the old couch, her skin clammy and cool, her stomach emptying into the trash bin he placed in front of her. Once he realized the cause of such behavior, he rushed for antibiotics and sat and watched as she went through night sweats and nightmares.

But this time it wasn't some vain, shallow cut that medicine could fix. This was deep, in her bones, in her soul. Whatever that was haunting her, plaguing her, even if it wasn't something so harsh, was already planted, seeded, and bloomed. He held back her hair as she emptied her stomach, stroking her back with long movements over the shirt he put on her.

She groaned, softly and throaty, her mouth full of cotton it seemed and leaned back against the couch. He could read the exhaustion on her face.

"You through?" he asked cautiously, nodding to the mess of herself.

She pursed her lips, a quiver going through her body, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes were hollow, skin sallow, but with an intensity that he didn't know she could still possess, she spoke with a slur-"Never."

Shaking his head, he sighed and pushed her hair away from her clammy face. The stench of vomit and alcohol was strong in the air and he wanted nothing more than to have a fresh breeze through his crypt at the very second. Life had been stale around him lately, it seemed, yet no matter what there was still that stagnant stench around him, decomposing. He was rotting, this town was rotting. Everything was dead, including him and her and he couldn't do anything about it.

"I'm cold," she whispered sluggishly, the dampness of the night seeping into her skin. She was shaking, trembling with goosebumps.

Spike watched her quietly, her body melting into his seeking for heat that he couldn't give. Pulling a ratty blanket over her, he studied her eyes, her nose, her lips. This was so different then last night, then the last couple of years. It's as if she's been fighting for so long and she's finally given up, finally given in, finally been tamed. He wonders if he should speak. It's been too long since he's been someone's hero.

"I think I still hate you," she slurs, her eyes blinking slowly.

He could feel her heart pulse against her skin, getting into his head. He remembered in the days of that summer when when he counted time by the beats of her heart. She could only be content to the sound of water running, so he built a fountain of sorts that was more like a leak in a pipe that constantly ran. He remembered that when she cried, she tried to keep it in because she figured that she couldn't cry pretty. He remembered that she'd try to make him art out of the child water colors he stole for her. He remembered just how much he loved that girl and how much he would give up for her.

He smirked and rubbed her head as she passed out again, her body crashing against his.

_ I was hoping I could tell you this with two feet on the ground But I don't think I can talk, because I'm not very stable right now._


End file.
